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This article was published on ComputerWorld on September 8, 2009 - I can sum up every article, book and column written by notable management experts about managing IT in two sentences: "Geeks are smart and creative, but they are also egocentric, antisocial, managerially and business-challenged, victim-prone, bullheaded and credit-whoring. To overcome these intractable behavioral [...]

The last thing an opinions writer wants is to be discovered by their least “defendable” post. But sometimes a little unvarnished opinion leads to a moment of clarity that objectivity would otherwise muddle. Such a moment was provided to me a month ago when I was doing one of my (many) daily digg and reddit [...]

Jump to part 1... II - Use the Resources you have - Damn, if I had a nickel for every organization that bleeds money on unimplemented technology and underutilized, or more accurately "inappropriately utilized" staff... Companies, the world over, could save billions in IT, and operational costs, if they just used what they already have. It doesn't matter if you're Unix [...]

Jump to part 2... I've seen my share of IT gone wrong, and I pay attention when it does. Sure, the problems and solutions may seem obvious, "do good, don't do evil" as a CIO colleague of mine likes to say... but making the conscious effort to recognize and stand up for the most critical values [...]

Yes, I could devote every article to the pervasiveness of bad IT management and it's chilling effects on business, but it depresses me and it's time to move on, so we'll wrap that up today. The next article will be on how to fix IT gone bad... tips anyone can use to restore the value [...]

Who da man? - What does it matter that the top IT leaders of today are more and more akin to the Pointed-Haired Boss instead of the Pocket-Protectored Practitioners of the past? An IT department is just a commodity service provided by a collection of people needing to be supervised, so any MBA will do... right? Well, interestingly enough, the [...]

Mistaking good values for good values - There are a few themes that I'll go back to over and over again. Here is one: "Your IT is a reflection of your organization's values." That's a good thing, right? You organization values the work it does, those it employs and those it serves, so if your [...]

What's IT? For a complete, clear and detailed explanation, we turn to Wikipedia. Well, ok, so I jest... it's woefully vague, probably inaccurate, though not entirely indefensible. The current entry just doesn't annoy anyone enough to bother changing it - it's a "democratic truth". Fact is, IT used to mean something, but misuse, time and evolution have diluted [...]